A team of researchers from the University of California at Santa Barbara and Georgia Tech this week published detailed research on a set of weaknesses and vulnerabilities in Android that can allow an attacker to use a malicious app to completely control the UI of a device. The Cloak & Dagger attacks, as they’re called, involve abusing a pair of permissions that Android will automatically grant to apps from the Play store. Dennis Fisher spoke with Yanick Fratantonio and Simon Chung about their research and how Google is responding to it.

Music by Chris Gonsalves and Ken Montigny

Image: Drestwn, CC by license.